DOCSLIB.ORG

A Platonic Dialectic: Can Linguistics Enhance

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
A Platonic Dialectic: Can Linguistics Enhance A PLATONIC DIALECTIC: CAN LINGUISTICS ENHANCE LITERARY CRITICISM? By AGNES ALLISON DAVIS II · Bachelor of Science Phillips University Enid, Oklahoma 1965 Master of Arts University of Tulsa Tulsa, Oklahoma 1969 Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate College of the Oklahoma State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY July, 1976 . ' _, ) . .. : ) v' ; ., ~ .J " - • ' J - •.. ,. A PLATONIC DIALECTIC: CAN LINGUISTICS ENHANCE LITERARY CRITICISM? Thesis Approved: 9 6 l"'l 6' 3• ._, ' .u ii PREFACE This study is concerned with a deep structure analysis of syntax in English sentence structure based on the generative transformational theory and generative transformational grammar developed by Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The primary objective was to acquire data about various types of transformations used by prose writers of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries and to apply those data in a critical evaluation of samples of literary works from those three centuries. A further p~rpose was to explore through the application of those data to literary works the possible contribu­ tions of syntax to literary style. The author wishes to express her .appreciation to her major adviser, Dr. David S. Berkeley, for his guidance and assistance throughout the preparation for and the writing of this dissertation. Appreciation is also expressed to the other members of the committee, Dr. Judson Milburn, Dr. Peter c. Rollins, Dr. Robert Raqford, and Dr. Richard Prawat, for their invaluable assistance in the preparation of the final manuscript. A note of thanks is given to Dr. John Battle, now of Austin, Texas, for his instruction in linguistics during the years he served on the faculty of the Department of English at Oklahoma State University. Without his instruction in course work in linguistics, the study could never have been conceived or carried out. Miss Velda Davis is grate~ fully acknowledged as the typist who prepared the final copy of the study. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. THE RATIONALE 1 II. LINGUISTICS AND THE LITERARY CRITIC 8 III. THE LINGUISTIC THEORY AND ITS FORMALIZATION 17 IV. APPROACHES TO THE PROBLEM OF LITERARY STYLE 28 v. THE CRITERIA FOR SELECTING THE LITERARY CORPUS • 36 Sample Texts From the Seventeenth Century ~9 Sample Texts From the Eighteenth Century 50 Sample Texts From the Nineteenth Century 50 VI. COMPARISON AND ANALYSIS: THE TOOLS OF THE CRITIC 55 VII. INTERPRETATIONS 132 LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED • 151 iv LIST OF TABLES Table Page I. Embedded Sentence Analysis: Francis Bacon, Sentence No. 1 . 61± II. Embedded Sentence Analysis: Francis Bacon, Sentence No. 2 . 66 III. Embedded Sentence Analysis: Francis Bacon, Sentence No. 3 . 68 IV. Embedded Sentence Analysis: Francis Bacon, Sentence No. I± . 70 v. Embedded Sentence Analysis: Abraham Cowley, Sentence No. 1 . 71± VI. Embedded Sentence Analysis: Abraham Cowley, Sentence No. 2 . 78 VII. Embedded Sentence Analysis: Abraham Cowley, Sentence No. 3 . 82 VIII. Embedded Sentence Analysis: Abraham Cowley, Sentence No. I± . 8~ IX. Summary of Data From Transformational Analyses for Francis Bacon and Abraham Cowley, Seventeenth Century . 85 X. Embedded Sentence Analysis: Joseph Addison, Sentence No. 1 . 87 XI. Embedded Sentence Analysis: Joseph Addison, Sentence No. 2 . 91 XII. Embedded Sentence Analysis: Joseph Addison, Sentence No. 3 . 93 XIII. Embedded Sentence Analysis: Joseph Addison, Sentence No. I± . 97 XIV. Embedded Sentence Analysis: Oliver Goldsmith, Sentence No. 1 . 99 v Table Page XV. Embedded Sentence Analysis: Oliver Goldsmith, Sentence No. 2 . 101 XVI. Embedded Sentence Analysis: Oliver Goldsmith, Sentence No. 3 . 103 XVII. Embedded Sentence Analysis: Oliver Goldsmith, Sentence No. 4 . 105 XVIII. Summary of Data From Transformational Analyses for Joseph Addison and Oliver Goldsmith, Eighteenth Century • . 108 XIX. Embedded Sentence Analysis: Charles Lamb, Sentence No. 1 . 110 XX. Embedded Sentence Analysis: Charles Lamb, Sentence No. 2 . ·• . 112 XXI. Embedded Sentence Analysis: Charles Lamb, Sentence No.· 3 . 114 XXII. Embedded Sentence Analysis: Charles Lamb, Sentence No. 4 . 118 XXIII. Embedded Sentence Analysis: William Hazlitt, Sentence No. 1 . 0 0 0 0 120 XXIV. Embedded Sentence Analysis: William Hazl itt, Sentence No. 2 0 0 0 . 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 122 XXV. Embedded Sentence Analysis: William Hazlitt, Sentence No. 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 126 XXVI. Embedded Sentence Analysis: William Hazli tt, Sentence No. 4 0 . 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 • . 128 XXVII. Summary of Data From Transformational Analyses for Charles Lamb and William Hazlitt, Nineteenth Century • • • • • • • • • • • • • 131 vi CHAPTER I THE RATIONALE The slightly contentious tone of the title of this dissertation, 11 A Platonic Dialectic: Can Linguistics Enhance Literary Criticism?" is not designed to provoke controversy but, instead, is intended to focus the attention of scholars on some linguistic insights which possibly have literary significance, gained from the comparatively recent develop- ment of syntactic analysis. To the reader who is oriented primarily to traditional literary pursuits rather than to recent linguistic research falls the task, then, of judging the validity of the argument that linguistics in this particular sense can enhance literary criticism. Appropriately, such a reader may ,question the possibility of any connections whatever existing between linguistics with its distinctly twentieth-century scientific cast, literary criticsm with its scholastic and Aristotelian lineage, and the Platonic dialectic of the fourth century B.C. A reservation of t~i.s nature is most likely to occur to those who have concentrated their own studies in only one of the three disciplines indicated by the title and herein to be united: linguistics, literary criticism, and philosophy. While there have been many studies in the past twenty years which emphasized the relevance of linguistics to literary criticism, most of these efforts centered on the phonological and morphological aspects of literary works. In addition, these studies almost always took poetry 1 2 rather than prose as their province. The third component of language, syntax, has only recently emerged as a valid and perhaps crucial part of language study, and, hence, an important consideration in literary criticism. Since syntax is a system which relates morphemes and meaning in the form of grammatical sentences, it is better studied in prose than in poetry. Consequently, syntactical analysis of prose is a com­ paratively recent development, and studies in this linguistic direction are meager. An attempt will be made in this dissertation to bring together through a syntactic analysis of prose the first two disciplines of the triad, linguistics and literary criticism, by means of the third, philosophy. Success in presenting the evidence will rest chiefly on the fluid nature of a philosophical intermediary, such as the Platonic dialectic. For the purposes of this dissertation, two things are old: the Platonic dialectic and literary criticism. They have in common the oldest of the old, language. The twentieth century brought with it a new way of looking at language--through the lens of linguistics, the scientific study of language. When one intermixes the linguistically new with the linguistically old, he stands a chance of bringing about a linguistic evolution. To explain further, the science of linguistics certainly will not effect a wholly new discipline of literary criticism; rather, in character with evolutionary processes which are always gradual, the greatest contribution of linguistics may be to give literary criticism simply a different cast, one which is less subjective and impressionistic than its customery mien. At this point it seems expedient, first, to give a general defi­ nition of the term dialectics; second, to render a definition in 3 particular of Platonic dialectics; and third, to relate Platonic dialectics to the substance of this dissertation. The American Heritage Dictionary of ~English Language describes dialectics as "any method of argument or exposition that systematically weighs contradictory facts or ideas with a view to the resolution of their real or apparent contra­ dictions.111 The Columbia Encyclopedia elaborates upon the historical and philosophical dimensions of the term dialectic: dialectic: in philosophy, a term originally applied to the method of philosophizing by means of question and answer employed by certain ancient philosophers, notably Socrates. For Plato the term came to apply more strictly to logical method and meant ~reduction.£!.~~ multiple in~ experience .2!_ phenomena !2, the lni ty of systematically organized concepts of ideas:z- Italics mine.] In considering the term Platonic dialectics, the reader will realize the necessity for this identification when he remembers that there are several types of "dialectics" characterized by the names of the philosophers who interpreted the term in their own ways to fit their particular philosophical systems; thus, besides Platonic dialectics, he finds such appellations as Kantian dialectics, Hegelian dialectics, and Marxian dialectics. Therefore, a further description of dialectics in the Platonic sense is necessary if this type is to shape the effort in this dissertation to demonstrate the relativity of linguistics to literary criticism. "Plato himself made no formal division of his philosophy," according to ~Columbia Encyclopedia, "but from ancient times his thought has been discussed under the headings of dialectic, physics, and ethics. He used the term dialectic to describe all logical thinking. For Plato the process of thinking is twofold: the establishment of general ideas by induction and their classification by; general divisio·n.113 In a later portion of this dissertation there is presented a sequence of twenty-four tables classifying 11 by logical division" certain "general ideas" about sentence structure established 11 by induction." Plato believed that dialectics had the power, unmatched by any other type of inquiry, to lead those experienced in certain studies to knowledge.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Reading Isaiah Berlin in China1
    Reading Isaiah Berlin in China1 A year before his death in 1997, Isaiah Berlin was invited by a Chinese scholar named Ouyang Kang to write a summary of his thought for the Chinese reading public. Berlin, as Dr Henry Hardy recalls, much valued this new readership, and therefore wrote his last essay, ‘My Intellectual Path’. It was first published in English in the New York Review of Books, and then included in The Power of Ideas, an anthologies edited by Hardy.2 Eight years later, this piece finally received its Chinese translation. According to Ouyang Kang, his incentive is to edit a book composed of intellectual self-portraits by several distinguished Anglophone philosophers as a way to introduce contemporary Anglophone philosophy to common readers in China. Ironically, when Ouyang’s volume was published, many of Berlin’s writings had already been translated and his thought been made accessible to the general public.3 Unlike his Oxford colleague, the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, Isaiah Berlin never went to China; nor did he write anything directly related to it. Although he sometimes mentioned China in passing, he seemed not to have known much about either its history or its status quo, and he probably viewed it, along with India and Japan, as an old, mysterious and exotic civilisation. Among his interlocutors, Joseph Alsop had served in the ‘Flying Tigers’ commanded by C.L. Chennault in fighting the Japanese. After the Communist Party took power by defeating Chiang Kai-shek’s army in 1949, thus ending a civil war lasted for three years, China became a Communist regime, which borrowed its totalitarian system entirely from the Soviet Union.
    [Show full text]
  • Taking Politics Seriously – but Not Too Seriously
    Taking Politics Seriously – but Not Too Seriously Charles Blattberg Professor of Political Philosophy Université de Montréal It makes one ashamed that men of our advanced years should turn a thing as serious as this into a game. Seneca1 One of Edward’s Mistresses was Jane Shore, who has had a play written about her, but it is a tragedy & therefore not worth reading. Jane Austen2 To Isaiah Berlin, the idea “that all good things must be compatible…and perhaps even entail one another in a systematic fashion [is] perhaps one of the least plausible beliefs ever entertained by profound and influential thinkers.”3 So says pluralism of monism. The claim is meant to apply as much to personal as to political life, and it has led pluralists to argue that monists overlook the inescapably tragic dimension of both. If, when values conflict, we cannot turn to a systematic theory for guidance, then it seems we have no choice but to compromise and, by compromising, diminish what we believe to be good. That, at least, is what comes from negotiation, which is what pluralists recommend as the chief alternative to the application of monist theories of morality or justice. And they do so even though – or rather because – it means embracing a world that is inherently unsystematic, sometimes tragically so.4 One might push this point even further. Monists do not merely fail to give the tragedy of morals or politics its due; some can even be accused of treating them frivolously, as if they were *A chapter from Towards One, As Many (forthcoming).
    [Show full text]
  • What the Book Contains Is a Theory of the Nature of Philosophy. Philosophy Is an Unstable Derived Cultural Activity Like the Opera
    The Philosophical Inquiry: Towards a Global Account, was published by the University Press of America, Langham, 2002) What the book contains is a theory of the nature of philosophy. Philosophy is an unstable derived cultural activity like the opera. It takes its materials, motivations and procedures from three different cultural fields: art, religion, and science, with different polarizations according to the author or the tradition. As philosophy is the cradle of sciences, they dictate the direction, and by opposing Science from philoophy the most proper nature of Science i salso uncovered. As I published this book as I was in Berkeley 18 years ago it was a death-born child. There were no reviews, no nothing. Anyway, I cannot deny that in my view it still gives the best explanation of the nature of philosophy I’ve already met. THE PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY TOWARDS A GLOBAL ACCOUNT ____________________ _________ CLAUDIO COSTA THE PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY * (Heraklit) Nun scheint mir, gibt es ausser der Arbeit des Kunstlers noch eine andere, die Welt sub specie aeterni einzufangen. Es ist – glaube ich, der Weg des Gedankens, der gleichsam über die Welt hinfliege und sie so lässt, wie sie ist – sie von oben von Fluge betrachtend.** (Wittgenstein) Science is what we know; philosophy is what we don’t know. (…) Science is what we can prove to be true; philosophy is what we can’t prove to be false. (B. Russell) _____________ * The sibyl with raving mouth uttering her unlaughing, unadorned, unincensed words reaches out over a thousand years with her voice through the god. (tr. K.
    [Show full text]
  • The Development of Ideas in the Novels of Iris Murdoch Thesis
    Open Research Online The Open University’s repository of research publications and other research outputs Playful Platonist : The development of ideas in the novels of Iris Murdoch Thesis How to cite: Edwards, S. L. (1984). Playful Platonist : The development of ideas in the novels of Iris Murdoch. PhD thesis The Open University. For guidance on citations see FAQs. c [not recorded] https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Version: Version of Record Link(s) to article on publisher’s website: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21954/ou.ro.0000de3e Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online’s data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. oro.open.ac.uk i U is 154,6 (Z ý', 1)P, S-f P. ýC- -1 LO PLAYFUL PLATONIST: TFIE DEVELOPISNT OF =Eý 221 TFIE NOVELS OF IRTI; MURDOCH by Stephen Laurence Edwards A thesis submitted for the degree of Ph. D. at The Open University, January 1984. rio u0 I- Playful tlatonist: the Development of Ideas in the Novels of Iris Mirdoch I am willing that this thesis may be made available to readers and may be photcopied subject to the discretion of the Librarian. L S. L. Edwards 20th June 1984. Th, opiýn t-lrivp-rsifm col, 22 ... ..... ...... ii SUýRARY Tnis thesis examines Iris Murdoch's novels in the light of her philosophical thinking. 1t places her ethical thinking in the context of twentieth century moral philosophy and shows that her approach to the problems of the subject is out of key with the general run of cont(-, r,..pora-ry philosophical th-inking.
    [Show full text]
  • 1.9 Andreas Vrahimis
    Journal for the History of “Was There a Sun Before Men Existed?” Analytical Philosophy A.J. Ayer and French Philosophy in the Fifties Volume 1, Number 9 Andreas Vrahimis In contrast to many of his contemporaries, A. J. Ayer was an ana- Editor in Chief lytic philosopher who had sustained throughout his career some Mark Textor, King’s College London interest in developments in the work of his “continental” peers. Ayer, who spoke French, held friendships with some important Parisian intellectuals, such as Camus, Bataille, Wahl and Merleau- Editorial Board Ponty. This paper examines the circumstances of a meeting be- Juliet Floyd, Boston University tween Ayer, Merleau-Ponty, Wahl, Ambrosino and Bataille, which Greg Frost-Arnold, Hobart and William Smith Colleges took place in 1951 at some Parisian bar. The question under dis- Ryan Hickerson, University of Western Oregon cussion during this meeting was whether the sun existed before Henry Jackman, York University humans did, over which the various philosophers disagreed. This Sandra Lapointe, McMaster University disagreement is tangled with a variety of issues, such as Ayer’s Chris Pincock, Ohio State University critique of Heidegger and Sartre (inherited from Carnap), Ayer’s Richard Zach, University of Calgary response to Merleau-Ponty’s critique of empiricism, and Bataille’s response to Sartre’s critique of his notion of ‘unknowing’, which Production Editor uncannily resembles Ayer’s critique of Sartre. Amidst this tangle Ryan Hickerson one finds Bataille’s statement that an “abyss” separates English from French and German philosophy, the first recorded an- Editorial Assistant nouncement of the analytic-continental divide in the twentieth century.
    [Show full text]
  • THE NEW LEFT and the 1960S COLLECTED PAPERS of HERBERT MARCUSE EDITED by DOUGLAS KELLNER
    THE NEW LEFT AND THE 1960s COLLECTED PAPERS OF HERBERT MARCUSE EDITED BY DOUGLAS KELLNER Volume One TECHNOLOGY, WAR AND FASCISM Volume Two TOWARDS A CRITICAL THEORY OF SOCIETY Volume Three THE NEW LEFT AND THE 1960s Volume Four ART AND LIBERATION Volume Five PHILOSOPHY, PSYCHOANALYSIS AND EMANCIPATION Volume Six MARXISM, REVOLUTION AND UTOPIA HERBERT MARCUSE (1898–1979) is an internationally renowned philosopher, social activist and theorist, and member of the Frankfurt School. He has been remembered as one of the most influential social critical theorists inspiring the radical political movements in the 1960s and 1970s. Author of numerous books including One-Dimensional Man, Eros and Civilization, and Reason and Revolution, Marcuse taught at Columbia, Harvard, Brandeis University and the University of California before his death in 1979. DOUGLAS KELLNER is George F. Kneller Chair in the Philosophy of Education at U.C.L.A. He is author of many books on social theory, politics, history and culture, including Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism, Media Culture and Critical Theory, Marxism and Modernity. His Critical Theory and Society: A Reader, co-edited with Stephen Eric Bronner, and recent book Media Spectacle, are also published by Routledge. THE NEW LEFT AND THE 1960s HERBERT MARCUSE COLLECTED PAPERS OF HERBERT MARCUSE Volume Three Edited by Douglas Kellner First published 2005 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004 © 2005 Peter Marcuse Selection, editorial matter and introduction © 2005 Douglas Kellner Preface © 2005 Angela Y.
    [Show full text]
  • From Hobbes to Habermas: the Anti-Cultural Turn in Western Political Thought
    University of Kentucky UKnowledge Theses and Dissertations--Political Science Political Science 2020 FROM HOBBES TO HABERMAS: THE ANTI-CULTURAL TURN IN WESTERN POLITICAL THOUGHT Ralph Gert Schoellhammer University of Kentucky, [email protected] Author ORCID Identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7011-6696 Digital Object Identifier: https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2020.313 Right click to open a feedback form in a new tab to let us know how this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Schoellhammer, Ralph Gert, "FROM HOBBES TO HABERMAS: THE ANTI-CULTURAL TURN IN WESTERN POLITICAL THOUGHT" (2020). Theses and Dissertations--Political Science. 32. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/polysci_etds/32 This Doctoral Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Political Science at UKnowledge. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations--Political Science by an authorized administrator of UKnowledge. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STUDENT AGREEMENT: I represent that my thesis or dissertation and abstract are my original work. Proper attribution has been given to all outside sources. I understand that I am solely responsible for obtaining any needed copyright permissions. I have obtained needed written permission statement(s) from the owner(s) of each third-party copyrighted matter to be included in my work, allowing electronic distribution (if such use is not permitted by the fair use doctrine) which will be submitted to UKnowledge as Additional File. I hereby grant to The University of Kentucky and its agents the irrevocable, non-exclusive, and royalty-free license to archive and make accessible my work in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known.
    [Show full text]
  • Biblio.Doc, November 10, 2008 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY JOHN
    Biblio.doc, November 10, 2008 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY JOHN R. SEARLE 1956 (1) "Does It Make Sense to Suppose that All Events, Including Personal Experiences, Could Occur in Reverse?", Analysis Competition - Ninth ‘Problem’, Analysis, Vol. 16, No. 6, New Series No. 54, June 1956. 1958 (2) "Proper Names", Mind, Vol. LXVII, April, 1958. Reprinted in: Philosophy and Ordinary Language, Charles E. Caton (ed.), Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1963. Readings in the Philosophy of Language, Jay P. Rosenberg, and Charles Travis (eds.), Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971. Philosophical Logic, P. F. Strawson (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967. Praesuppositionen in Philosophie und Linguistik, J.S. Petoefi and D. Franck (eds.), Frankfurt am Main: Athenaeum 1973. Causal Theories of Mind, Steven Davis (ed.), Berlin: Walter de Gruyter: 1983. The Philosophy of Language, A. P. Martinich (ed.), Oxford: 2 Biblio.doc November 10, 2008 Oxford University Press, 1985. Translations: French: "Les Noms Propres", Theories du Signe et du Sens, Alain Rey (ed.), Paris: Klinksieck 1973 - 1976. German: "Eigennamen", Philosophie und Normale Sprache, Eike von Savigny (ed.), Freiburg: Verlag Karl Alber, 1969. Reprinted in: Philosophie und Sprache, Joachim Schulte (ed.) Stutttgart: Philipp Reclam, jun., 1981. Italian: "Nomi Propri", La Struttura Logica del Linguaggio, Andrea Bonomi (ed.), Milano: Valentino Bompiani, 1973. Spanish: "Nombres Propuis y Descripciones", in: La busqueda del significado, Luis Ml. Valdes Villanueva (ed.), Madrid: Universidad de Murcia, Tecnos, 1991. Chinese: in A.P. Martinich, The Philosophy of Language, 1998. (3) "Russell's Objections to Frege's Theory of Sense and Reference," Analysis, 18, 1957-8. Reprinted in: Essays on Frege, E.
    [Show full text]
  • Charles Taylor's Answer To
    BETWEEN EMPIRICISM AND INTELLECTUALISM: CHARLES TAYLOR’S ANSWER TO THE ‘MEDIA WARS’ Marc Anthony Caldwell Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Centre for Cultural and Media Studies, at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban. Durban, December 2008 Declaration I declare this dissertation is my own unaided work. It is being submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities, Development and Social Science, in the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban. It has not been submitted before for any other degree or examination in any other university. Marc Anthony Caldwell December, 2008 ii Contents Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………… iv Abstract ………………………………………………………………. v Introduction …………………………………………………………… 1 Chapter One: Science Wars, Post-Marxism, Taylor ………………………….. 18 Chapter Two: Journalism and the Media Wars ……………………………….. 48 Chapter Three: Taylor’s philosophical anthropology ……………………………. 78 Chapter Four: Taylor and the New Left ………………………………………. 119 Chapter Five: Merleau-Ponty’s influence on Taylor’s reading Marx …………. 159 Chapter Six: Taylor’s anti-epistemology …………………………………. 191 Conclusion …………………………………………………………… 227 References …………………………………………………………… 247 iii Acknowledgements My thanks go to my ‘thesis-widowed’ wife, Adi, who patiently read through the final drafts. Thanks too, to my supervisor, Professor Keyan Tomaselli, for remaining confident that despite its multiple versions, a final version of this thesis would eventually emerge. iv Abstract When the Media Wars broke out in Australian universities in the mid-1990s, journalism educator Keith Winschuttle accused cultural studies of teaching theory that contradicted the realist and empirical worldview of journalism practice. He labeled cultural studies as a form of linguistic idealism. His own worldview is decidedly empiricist.
    [Show full text]
  • A Critical Examination of the Underlying Sociological Theory of Secularization in the West in the Work of Charles Taylor
    THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA A Critical Examination of the Underlying Sociological Theory of Secularization in the West In the Work of Charles Taylor A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Faculty of the School of Theology and Religious Studies Of The Catholic University of America For the Degree Doctor of Philosophy © Copyright All Rights Reserved By German F. McKenzie Washington, D.C. 2015 A Critical Examination of the Underlying Sociological Theory of Secularization in the West In the Work of Charles Taylor German F. McKenzie, Ph.D. Director. William E. Dinges, Ph.D. Scholarly debate on secularization in the West has been largely developed in sociological terms. Two extreme positions in the conversations are those I label as “orthodox” and “counter- orthodox”, with several authors taking middle stances. “Orthodox” theorists affirm that modernity necessarily erodes religion, whereas “counter-orthodox” ones —also known as Rational Choice Theorists (RCT)— see secularization as a self-limiting process within modernity. As the debate between these views has somewhat stalled, other perspectives have caught the interest of researchers. An important contribution among them is that made by Canadian thinker Charles Taylor in his book A Secular Age (2007). This dissertation analyses the sociological basis of Charles Taylor’s account of secularization in order to elucidate what new insights he brings to the debate on the issue. It relies on textual analysis of all the pertinent works by Taylor, as well as his classical and contemporary sociological influences. As a sociological framework, it relies on the scholarship of British sociologist Margaret Archer, particularly on her views about the relationship between social and cultural structures and human agency, as well as about social change.
    [Show full text]
  • Hart's Definition and Theory in Jurisprudence Again Robert Birmingham University of Connecticut School of Law
    University of Connecticut OpenCommons@UConn Faculty Articles and Papers School of Law 1984 Hart's Definition and Theory in Jurisprudence Again Robert Birmingham University of Connecticut School of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://opencommons.uconn.edu/law_papers Part of the Jurisprudence Commons, and the Law and Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Birmingham, Robert, "Hart's Definition and Theory in Jurisprudence Again" (1984). Faculty Articles and Papers. 67. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/law_papers/67 +(,121/,1( Citation: 16 Conn. L. Rev. 775 1983-1984 Content downloaded/printed from HeinOnline (http://heinonline.org) Mon Aug 15 16:44:04 2016 -- Your use of this HeinOnline PDF indicates your acceptance of HeinOnline's Terms and Conditions of the license agreement available at http://heinonline.org/HOL/License -- The search text of this PDF is generated from uncorrected OCR text. -- To obtain permission to use this article beyond the scope of your HeinOnline license, please use: https://www.copyright.com/ccc/basicSearch.do? &operation=go&searchType=0 &lastSearch=simple&all=on&titleOrStdNo=0010-6151 HART'S DEFINITION AND THEORY IN JURISPRUDENCE AGAIN by Robert Birningham* I will say what Hart's classic paper' means in, or translate it into, contemporary philosophical discourse. But to give a context for it, I start by talking about MacCormick's recent book, H.L.A. Hart.2 We come away from reading its introductory chapter, a chapter Summers calls "fascinating,"13 having learned that Hart was trained not as a le- gal philosopher or jurisprude as such but as a lawyer and separately as a philosopher.
    [Show full text]
  • Supplementary Letters 1975–1997
    Supplementary Letters 1975–1997 This PDF is one of a series designed to assist scholars in their research on Isaiah Berlin, and the subjects in which he was interested. The series will make digitally available both selected published items and edited transcripts of unpublished material. The PDF is posted by the Isaiah Berlin Legacy Fellow at Wolfson College, with the support of the Trustees of the Isaiah Berlin Literary Trust. All enquiries, including those concerning rights, should be directed to the Legacy Fellow at [email protected] Supplementary Letters 1975–1997 Most of these letters do not appear in Affirming: Letters 1975–1997, being later discoveries. More annotation may be provided later, but for now the texts are made available here for the convenience of readers. Abbreviations and other editorial apparatus follow the conventions adopted in the published volume, including those listed here. Some sources are given at the end of the PDF, except for those to Robert Silvers, which are from the New York Public Library, MssCol 23385, Series I: Robert B. Silvers Files 1955–2016. Thanks to Richard Davenport-Hines, David Herman, Tal Nadan and Wang Qian for their help. The letters to Silvers are included by courtesy of the Manuscripts and Archives Division, the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. Those marked § first appeared in ‘The Israel Letters’, Jewish Quarterly no. 244, May 2021, 67–87. We are indebted to David Herman, who edited that selection, for allowing us to plagiarise his notes. Two (asterisked) letters from the published volume are also included: one because only a carbon copy was available to the editors (since then a top copy has come to light, and manuscript additions made by Berlin are shown here in this green); the other because the question arose on social media of what had been cut from it.
    [Show full text]